‘If only I thought you would love me even if I didn’t do it…’
‘Yes?’
‘…maybe I would do it again.’
‘I love you.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Håkan. I can manage for a few more days but then…’
‘Make sure you start to love me, then.’
Friday night at the Chinese restaurant. It’s a quarter to eight and the whole gang is there. Everyone except Karlsson who’s at home watching the TV quiz show ‘Nutcrackers’ and just as well. No great loss there. He’s the sort who’ll roll in when everything’s over and tell you how many questions he knew the answers to.
At the corner table for six nearest the door there’s Lacke, Morgan, Larry and Jocke. Jocke and Lacke are talking about what kinds of fish can live in both fresh and salt water. Larry is reading the evening paper and Morgan is swinging his leg in time to some song other than the Chinese muzak softly piped in through the hidden loudspeakers.
On the table in front of them are some glasses of beer. Their faces are hanging on the wall above the bar.
The restaurant owner was forced to flee China at the time of the Cultural Revolution, on account of his satirical caricatures of people in power. Now he has instead transferred his talents to his regulars. On the wall there are twelve tenderly drawn felt-pen sketches of them.
All the guys. And Virginia. The pictures of the guys are close-ups, where the irregularities of their physiognomies have been exaggerated.
Larry’s lined, almost hollowed-out face and a pair of enormous ears that stick straight out from his head make him look like a friendly but starving elephant.
In Jocke’s picture it is his large eyebrows that meet in the middle that have been emphasised and transformed into a rose bush and a bird, perhaps a nightingale.
Because of his style, Morgan has been given features of the young Elvis. Big sideburns and a ‘Hunka-hunka-burnin-looooove, baby’ expression. The head is perched on a small body holding a guitar, in Elvis pose. Morgan is more pleased with this picture than he wants to admit.
Lacke mostly looks worried. Here the eyes have been enlarged and given an intensified expression of suffering. He has a cigarette in his mouth and its smoke has gathered into a rain cloud above his head.
Virginia is the only one who appears in full body. In an evening gown, shining like a star in her sparkling sequins, posed with outstretched arms surrounded by a flock of pigs gazing at her in bewilderment. At Virginia’s request the restaurant owner has made a duplicate of this picture which Virginia has taken home.
Then there are a few others. Some who aren’t part of the gang. Some who have stopped coming. A few who have died.
Charlie fell down the stairs in his building on his way home from the restaurant one night. Cracked his head on the mottled concrete. The Gurkin got cirrhosis of the liver and died of an internal haemorrhage. One evening a few weeks before he died he had pulled his shirt up and showed them a red spider’s web of blood vessels branching out from his navel. ‘Damn expensive tattoo,’ he said and he died soon after. They had honoured his memory by putting his picture on the table and made toasts to it all evening.
There is no picture of Karlsson.
This Friday night is going to be the last one they will ever have all together. Tomorrow one of them will be gone forever. One more picture will be nothing more than a memory. And nothing will ever be the same.
Larry lowered the newspaper, put his reading glasses on the table and sipped some beer from his glass. ‘I’ll be damned. What’s going on inside the head of a person like that?’
He showed them the paper with the headline CHILDREN IN SHOCK above a picture of the Vällingby school and a small inset of a middle-aged man. Morgan glanced at the paper, pointed.
‘Is that the guy?’
‘No, it’s the principal.’
‘Looks like a murderer to me. Just the type.’
Jocke stretched a hand out for the paper.
‘Let me see.’
Larry gave him the paper and Jocke held it at arm’s length, studied the snapshot.
‘Looks like a conservative politician to me, guys.’
Morgan nodded.
‘That’s what I’m talking about.’
Jocke held up the paper so Lacke could see the photograph.
‘What do you think?’
Lacke looked at it reluctantly.
‘Ah, I don’t know. I get creeped out by that kind of thing.’
Larry breathed on his glasses and polished them against his shirt.
‘They’ll get him. You don’t get away with something like that.’
Morgan tapped his fingers on the table, stretched his hand out for the paper.
‘How did Arsenal do?’
Larry and Morgan switched to talking about the currently pathetic state of English soccer. Jocke and Lacke sat quietly, nursing their beers, lighting cigarettes. Then Jocke started in on the whole cod thing, how the cod was going to die out in the Baltic. The evening wore on.
Karlsson didn’t turn up but just before ten another man came in, someone none of them had ever seen before. The conversation was more intense at this hour and no one noticed him until the man was sitting alone at a table at the far end of the room.
Jocke leaned towards Larry.
‘Who’s that?’
Larry looked over discreetly, shook his head.
‘Don’t know.’
The new guy got a big whisky and quickly emptied it, ordered another. Morgan blew air out through his lips with a low whistle.
‘This guy means business.’
The man did not appear to notice that he was being observed. He simply sat motionless at the table, studying his hands, looking like all the trouble in the world had been stuffed into a backpack and strapped onto him. He downed his second whisky and ordered a third.
The waiter leaned down and said something to him. The man dug around in his pocket and showed him a few bills. The waiter made a gesture as if to say that wasn’t what he meant, when of course that was exactly what he had meant, and then went to fill the man’s order.
It wasn’t surprising to them that the man’s credit had been in question. His clothes were wrinkled and stained as if he had slept in them, in some uncomfortable place. The ring of hair around his bald spot was straggly and hung halfway to his ears. The face was dominated by a large pink nose and a jutting chin. Between them was a pair of small, plump lips that moved from time to time as if he were talking to himself. His expression didn’t change at all when the whisky was placed in front of him.
The gang returned to the subject they had been discussing: if Ulf Adelsohn would be worse than Gösta Bohman had been. Only Lacke looked over at the lone man from time to time. After a while, when the man was on his fourth drink, he said, ‘Shouldn’t we…ask him if he wants to join us?’
Morgan glanced at the man who had sunk inside himself even more. ‘No, why? What’s the use? His wife has left him, the cat is dead and life is hell. I know it all already.’
‘Maybe he’ll offer to buy us a round.’
‘That’s a different story. Then he’s allowed to have cancer as well.’ Morgan shrugged. ‘It’s OK by me.’
Lacke looked at Larry and Jocke. They made small gestures of assent and Lacke got up and walked over to the man’s table.
‘Hello.’
The man looked up at Lacke, bleary-eyed. The glass in front of him was almost empty. Lacke rested his hands on the chair on the other side of the table and leaned towards the man.
‘We were just wondering if maybe…you wanted to join us?’
The man shook his head slowly and made a befuddled, dismissive gesture, brushing the suggestion away.
‘No, thank you, but why don’t you sit down?’
Lacke pulled the chair out and sat. The man drained the last of his drink and waved the waiter over.
‘You want something? It’s on me.’
‘In that case. Same as
you, then.’
Lacke didn’t want to say the word ‘whisky’ since it sounded presumptuous to ask someone to buy you something expensive like that, but the man only nodded and when the waiter came closer he made a V-sign with his fingers and pointed to Lacke. Lacke leaned back in the chair. How long had it been since he had last ordered whisky in a bar? Three years? At least.
The man showed no signs of wanting to start a conversation, so Lacke cleared his throat and said, ‘Some cold weather we’re having.’
‘Yes.’
‘Could snow soon.’
‘Mmm.’
The whisky arrived and made further conversation unnecessary for a moment. Even Lacke got a double and he felt the eyes of the gang burning in his back. He raised the glass.
‘Cheers. And thanks.’
‘Cheers.’
‘You live around here?’
The man stared out into space, as if this was something he had never thought about before. Lacke couldn’t determine if the nodding of his head indicated an answer to the question or if it was part of an inner dialogue.
Lacke took another sip and decided that if the man didn’t answer the next question then he wanted to be left alone, not talk to anyone. If that was the case, Lacke would take his drink and return to the others. He had done his duty. He hoped the man wouldn’t answer.
‘So, then. What do you do to make the time go by?’
‘I…’
The man furrowed his brow and the corners of his mouth were lifted spasmodically into a grin, then relaxed again.
‘…I help out a little.’
‘I see. With what kind of thing?’
A spark of alertness flashed in the man’s eyes. He looked straight at Lacke, who felt a shiver at the base of his spine, as if a black ant had bitten him just above the tailbone.
Then he rubbed his hand over his eyes and pulled a few hundred kronor bills out of his pocket, placed them on the table and stood up.
‘Excuse me, I have to…’
‘OK. Thanks for the drink.’
Lacke raised his glass to his host, but he was already at the coat rack, got his coat down with clumsy hands and walked out. Lacke stayed put with his back to the gang, looking at the pile of bills in front of him. Five one hundred kronor bills. A tumbler of whisky cost sixty kronor and this outing had consisted of a total of five, maybe six.
Lacke looked surreptitiously to the side. The waiter was busy settling the bill of an older couple, the only dining customers. While Lacke stood up he crumpled one of the notes up into a ball, slipped it into his pocket and walked back to his regular table.
Halfway there he turned back, emptied the remaining whisky from the man’s glass into his own and took it with him.
A successful evening all around.
‘But “Nutcrackers” is on tonight!’
‘Yeah, but I’ll be back for it.’
‘It starts in…half an hour.’
‘I know.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Well, you don’t have to watch “Nutcrackers”, of course. I can watch it by myself. If you really have to go out.’
‘But…I’ll be back for it.’
‘I see. I guess I’ll wait on heating up the crepes.’
‘No you can…I’ll be back later.’
Oskar was torn. ‘Nutcrackers’ was one of the highlights of their TV week. Mum had made crepes with shrimp filling to eat in front of the TV. He knew he was disappointing her by going out instead of sitting here…and sharing the anticipation with her.
But he had been standing by the window since it got dark and just now he had seen the girl come out of the building next door and walk towards the playground. He had immediately pulled back from the window. He didn’t want her to think that he…
He then waited five minutes before putting on his clothes and heading out. He didn’t put on a hat.
He couldn’t see her in the playground. She was probably sitting high up on the jungle gym somewhere like yesterday. The blinds in her window were still drawn but there was light coming from the apartment. Except for the bathroom window, a dark square.
Oskar sat down on the sandpit edge and waited. Like he was waiting for an animal to come out of its hole. He was simply planning to sit for a while. And if the girl didn’t come out he would go back in again, play it cool.
He got out his Rubik’s cube, started to twist it to have something to do. He had gotten tired of having that one corner piece to worry about and so he mixed up the cube completely so he could start over.
The creak from the cube was amplified in the cold air, it sounded like a small machine. In the corner of his eye Oskar saw the girl get up from her perch in the monkey bars. He kept working, creating a new one-coloured side. The girl stood still. He felt a flicker of worry in his stomach but took no notice of her.
‘You here again?’
Oskar lifted his head, pretending to be surprised, let a few seconds pass and then:
‘You again.’
The girl said nothing and Oskar twisted the cube again. His fingers were stiff. It was hard to tell the colours apart in the dark and so he only worked with the white side, that was easiest to differentiate.
‘Why are you sitting here?’
‘Why are you up there?’
‘I came here to be by myself.’
‘Me too.’
‘So why don’t you go home?’
‘You go home. I’ve lived here longer than you.’
Take that. The white side was done now and it was harder to keep going. The other colours were one big dark grey blur. He kept moving pieces, at random.
The next time he looked up the girl was standing on the railing and getting ready to jump. Oskar felt a quiver in his tummy when she hit the ground; if he had tried the same jump he would have hurt himself. But the girl landed as softly as a cat; walked over to him. He turned back to the cube. She stopped in front of him.
‘What’s that?’
Oskar looked up at the girl, at the cube, then back at the girl.
‘This?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a Rubik’s cube.’
‘What did you say?’
This time Oskar over-enunciated the words.
‘Ru-bik’s cube.’
‘And what’s that?’
Oskar shrugged.
‘A toy.’
‘A puzzle?’
‘Yes.’
Oskar held the cube out to her.
‘Want to try it?’
She took the cube from his hand, turned it, examined it from all sides. Oskar laughed. She looked like a monkey examining a piece of fruit.
‘You really haven’t seen one before?’
‘No. What do you do?’
‘Like this…’
Oskar got the cube back and the girl sat down next to him. He showed her how you turned it and that the point was to get the sides to be one colour. She took the cube and started to turn it.
‘Can you see the colours?’
‘Naturally.’
He snuck glances at her while she was working on the cube. She was wearing the same pink top as yesterday and he couldn’t understand why she wasn’t freezing. He was starting to get cold from sitting still, even though he was wearing his jacket.
Naturally.
She talked funny too, like a grown-up. Maybe she was older than him, even though she was so puny. Her thin white throat jutted out of her poloneck top, merged with a sharp jaw. Like a mannequin.
But now the wind blew in Oskar’s direction and he swallowed, breathed through his mouth. The mannequin stank.
Doesn’t she ever take a bath?
The smell was worse than old sweat, it was closer to the smell that came when you removed the bandage from an infected wound. And her hair…
When he dared to take a closer look at her—she was completely absorbed by the c
ube—he noticed that her hair was caked together and fell around her face in matted tufts and clumps. As if she had put glue or…mud in it.
While he was studying her, he happened to breathe in through his nose and had to suppress the urge to vomit. He got up, walked over to the swings and sat down. Couldn’t be close to her. The girl didn’t seem to care.
After a while he got up and walked over to where she was sitting, still preoccupied with the cube.
‘Hey there, I have to go home now.’
‘Mmm…’
‘The cube…’
The girl paused. Hesitated for a moment, then held the cube out to him without saying anything. Oskar took it, looked at her and then handed it back.
‘You can keep it until tomorrow.’
She didn’t take it.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I may not be here tomorrow.’
‘Until the day after tomorrow, then. But you can’t have it for longer than that.’
She thought about it. Took the cube.
‘Thanks. I’ll probably be here tomorrow.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
As Oskar turned and left he heard soft creaks from the cube. She was going to stay out here in her thin top. Her mother and father must be…different, letting her go out dressed like that. You could end up with a bladder infection.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Out.’
‘You’re drunk.’
‘Yes.’
‘We agreed you wouldn’t do this any more.’
‘You agreed. What’s that?’
‘A puzzle. You know it isn’t good for you—’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Borrowed it. Håkan, you have to—’
‘Borrowed—from who?’
‘Håkan. Don’t be like this.’
‘Make me happy, then.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Let me touch you.’
‘All right, but on one condition.’
‘No. No, no. Not that.’
‘Tomorrow. You have to.’
‘No. Not one more time. What do you mean, “borrowed”? You never borrow anything. What is it anyway?’
‘A puzzle.’
‘Don’t you have enough puzzles? You care more about your puzzles than you do about me. Puzzles. Cuddles. Puzzles. Who gave it to you. Who gave it to you? I said!’